Fat Kid Rules the World

Of all the random character actors in Hollywood, we bet you weren’t expecting Matthew Lillard to ever step behind a camera and direct an award-winning film. We sure as hell weren’t before visiting Austin, Texas, in March for the 2012 SXSW Film Festival; there, word spread across the city that Lillard’s debut feature, Fat Kid Rules the World is excellent, a feeling cemented once the movie nabbed the fest’s Audience Award.

That’s right, the dude who played Shaggy in those live-action Scooby Dooflicks may very well be the next Ben Affleck. Fat Kid Rules the World, based on a novel written by K.L. Going, centers on an obese teenager who’s plan to jump in front of a bus and end it all gets thwarted by one of his peers, sparking an unlikely friendship between the titular fat kid and his drug-addicted savior. First Lillard held his own alongside George Clooney in last year’s The Descendants, and now he’s an acclaimed filmmaker? Give the man a hand, folks.